


Argus

by hossgal



Category: Firefly, Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-08
Updated: 2006-12-08
Packaged: 2019-04-29 07:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14467752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hossgal/pseuds/hossgal
Summary: "This dog was servant to one dead a long time since." Ulysses,  Book 17 (Chapman translation)





	Argus

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Firefly’s Glow](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Firefly%27s_Glow), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Firefly's Glow collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fireflysglow/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** No spoilers beyond general concept for SPN, mild spoilers for "Objects in Space" for FF. Set pre-movie.  
>  Author's Note: For Victoria P. who asked for Kaylee Fry and John Winchester. Thanks to Florastuart for beta. 1,960 words. Contact the author at hosscheka at yahoo dot com. Feedback adored and answered.

  
Author's notes: No spoilers beyond general concept for SPN, mild spoilers for "Objects in Space" for FF. Set pre-movie.  
Author's Note: For Victoria P. who asked for Kaylee Fry and John Winchester. Thanks to Florastuart for beta. 1,960 words. Contact the author at hosscheka at yahoo dot com. Feedback adored and answered.  


* * *

Argus

## Argus

"How 'bout this one?" 

Kaylee glanced at the coil in Jayne's hand. "Nope." 

The burnt-out compressor coil hit the ground. "How 'bout this one?" 

"Nope." Kaylee picked up a promising looking pump, flipped it end for end in her hands. _Niou-se_ , the bladder was cracked and stuck to the side, she'd never get it out in one piece. 

" _Go-se_ , you ain't even looking. How can you tell?" Jayne sounded half peeved, half curious. Behind them, Zoe snickered. Their first mate was leaning against a gutted out trans box, cradling a light rifle and soaking in the sun. 

"Ain't talking to you, woman." 

Zoe laughed again. "Doesn't make you any less funny, Jayne." 

Kaylee put down the pump, shuffled down the row another couple steps. 

"Jayne, could you hit that buzzard, the one sitting over on the fence?" 

"Sure. You want carrion bird for supper or something?" 

"Did you look?" 

"No." And now he seemed even more annoyed, if also impressed. "How about this one?" 

"N- hold on. Put it in the basket, if we don't find another one, we'll take it." 

The wind was cool - Kaylee was glad of her coat and the scarf over her ears - but the sun was bright and shining like, well, like _anything_ , and she had a thin roll of cash in her pocket, and the Captain had thrown her and Jayne and Zoe off the ship and told them not to come back for six hours, which, _really_ was kind of an over-reaction, and anyway it had been Wash's idea to put the sticky paste on the Captain's water closet. Really. 

They hadn't had any real need for parts - meaning, they always needed something, but nothing _right this minute_ \- but none of the bars had been open yet, and Zoe had voted against a whorehouse. Jayne hadn't objected too much to the junkyard. Zoe hadn't exactly been thrilled about the idea - there had been talk of some crazy man living in the junkyard, stealing things and the like - but Jayne had re-opened the idea of a whorehouse, so the junkyard it was. Jayne even unbent enough to give her a hand, junk-picking being, in his words, enough like work to keep a man occupied without having to sweat too much. 

She didn't think he was even looking much at the parts he was picking up, but it was either let him help her or listen as Jayne picked another fight with Zoe. There never was any doubt how the fight was going to end, but sometimes Jayne found interesting things. 

"How 'bout this one?" 

Like now. "ooooo," she said, in genuine appreciation. "Gimme." He handed it over, a wide grin splitting his face. 

"Oh, this is nice." A double distribution hydrolytic valve, 15 cc at least, and - she checked the feeder line - yep, seal still in place, and even with half the wiring frayed it was a find. "Oh, yes. Good job, Jayne, put it in the basket - oh." The wire crate they were collecting things in was past over flowing. 

"I'll get another one, just a sec." And with that, Jayne set off back to the junkyard office, and the stack of market baskets leaning against the outer wall. 

Kaylee went back to looking. Junk-picking was part art, part science. A lot of it was knowing what was likely to be found with what - like, say, if you had a _Firefly_ class ship, there was no need to go digging through a box of _Isis_ engine parts. 

Another two steps down, and there, a new pile. Well, new to the junk yard, with only a light layer of dust and no weeds to speak of. She circled the pile, minding her feet, just letting her eyes trail over the jumbled parts and pieces. Part of scavenging was science, part was art... 

And part was plain luck. Like the luck that brought you two double distro valves in five minutes, the second one just sitting here in plain sight, half-hidden by a mess of melted _cis_ wiring. She stepped in and reached into the pile for the valve. 

Another hand clamped down on hers, just as her fingers closed over it. 

" _Way!_ " she said, and jerked back, too startled to say anything else. But she couldn't get very far, not with the man's hand - and it was a man, a big man, tall and skinny and wild, grey-shot hair and beard - gripping her hand so hard. "Let go!" 

"I need it, it's mine," the man said, his eyes wide and crazy. His breath stank, _he_ stank, worse than Jayne on a three day bender. But that was _her_ valve, she had her hand on it, it might mean the difference between _Serenity_ living and dying one day. 

"I saw it first! Let go!" She tugged at her arm, but he wasn't letting go. She had started out spooked, and then mad, and now _scared_ was growing larger and larger, and pushing the angry right out of her. 

Where was Jayne? They were on the other side of the junk heap, where Zoe couldn't see them, and if the man was that good at sneaking - and he was good, he had come right up on her, she hadn't heard him or seen him and he'd gotten right next to her - if he was good, Zoe might not have seen him moving around. 

"It's mine, I need it, I need to fix it." The man's words were clear, but he talked strange, some accent Kaylee had never heard. His voice was as strange as his mad, mad eyes. She was going to scream for Jayne Cobb to come rescue her, as mortifying as that thought was - scream for Jayne or Zoe or God or anyone to come rescue her. But she couldn't breathe, the man _stank_ but that wasn't it, she was _afraid_ , as afraid as she had ever been, since Jubal Early, maybe more, and that was why she couldn't breathe enough to make a sound, much less scream - 

" _Gedoff!_ " And that was Jayne, reaching over her, straight over her head to punch the crazy in the head at the same time as he jerked Kaylee by the shoulder and _threw_ her back. The man went down, and so did Kaylee, dropping the distro valve and snatching it back up and scrambling to her feet - the breath knocked out of her, she was dragging wind in huge gulps - as Zoe came up, one hand on Kaylee's collar, jerking her to her feet. With the other hand, Zoe leveled the rifle at the crazy man, and Jayne punched the man again, and again, and this time the man went down and stayed down. 

Jayne had his sidearm out and was sighting down the barrel at the man on the ground before Kaylee realized what he was doing. 

"NO!" Kaylee squirmed out of Zoe's grasp and ran to jerk at Jayne, just the way she knew _not_ to, _nevernever_ never* run up on anyone with a drawn weapon, even your best friend, not in a fight*, the Captain would be so angry if she got herself shot like that, but all Jayne did was curse and shrug her off, gun hand never wavering. "It's just a distro valve! He, he didn't mean -" 

Except she was looking at him now, at the man with hand raised shaky over his head, and remembered the look in his eyes, and _yes_ , he _had_ meant to hurt her, as much as anyone could mean anything, he was past touched and well on his way to the mad-sickness, like a stray dog that got bit by leatherwings. 

But he was also cowering in the dust, his coat smeared white, and one bare hand raised against Jayne and his firearm and his knife and whatever else Jayne had on him, and the coat the man wore was tattered at the elbow and under the arm, and Kaylee felt like the emperor's daughter in her boots and clean overhauls and her bunk on _Serenity_ with it's white sheets and two changes of clothes and the people Kaylee loved. 

"I need it," the man said, and abruptly he dropped his face into his hands was rocking back and forth, his words muffled by his fingers. "I need it, I have to get back, my boys, I need my boys, I need to fix it, I need to go back..." 

"Jayne," Zoe said, and there was _enough_ and _pathetic_ and _we're done here_ all wrapt up in that single word. She took a step back, pulling Kaylee with her. 

"We could put him outta his misery, right here," and Kaylee knew Jayne meant it kind, was thinking like she did, of hydrophobic dogs and things that would never be right again, ever. 

But Zoe said, "Not worth the bullet." That was like Zoe, who was harder in her heart than Jayne, or even Mal sometimes. Jayne nodded and backed away, snapping the safety back on. The man jerked at the sound, grunted and flinched like he'd been shot. He stopped shaking then, just sat there, and his face was drawn and still, but sane, when he let his hands fall away. He stared at Kaylee as though he had never seen her before, and as though there were not tear tracks washing clean through the dirt on his face. 

She thought of River then, and how her lucid periods used to be broken by fits of madness, and how River would weep, caught in frustration and terror. 

"Wait," she said, twisting free of Zoe's arm. "I said, _wait_." She still had the distro valve in her hands, and her palm was marked with a reddening gorge where she'd been gripping it so tight. It was in better condition than the one Jayne had found, but they'd only need one at a time on Serenity, any how. 

Goodness knew what a crazy old man wanted with the thing, or what he was planning on fixing, or where he thought he'd go. She wrapped the loose wires around the core, tossed it underhand at the man. 

" _Way_!" Jayne protested. "You're just going to give it to him now?" 

It fell at the man's feet with a thump, and he just stared at it. 

"It's okay. You can have it." 

The man had stared for just another second, and then had surged up - frayed hems and long limbs and another waft of unwashed stink - snatched up the valve and took off, coat flapping as he dodged around the junk piles. He zigged and zagged across the lot until he came to a cobbled together shelter, three colors of canvas and heat-cracked sunshielding leaning against the side of an old JS-31. 

She watched him all the way, and he never looked back. Not once. 

"We're leaving now," Zoe said, and her voice wasn't taking _just five more minutes_ as an answer. Kaylee went with her, and Jayne followed, picking up their basket along the way. 

Kaylee looked back, twice on the way to the junkyard gate, and once more, when they were outside and going up the hill, where the road curved to let them look over the fence into the yard. There was no sign of the crazy, just the end of one piece of blue plastic, flapping in the wind. 

The cloud line slipped over the sun as they passed over the crest of the hill, casting the world into shadow, and even though she had her coat and Zoe's arm around her, Kaylee shivered.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:   **Argus**   
Author:   **hossgal**   
Details:   **Standalone**  |  **PG**  |  **gen**  |  **10k**  |  **12/08/06**   
Characters:  Zoe, Kaylee, Jayne \- John Winchester   
Crossover with: Supernatural   
Summary:  "This dog was servant to one dead a long time since." Ulysses, Book 17 (Chapman translation)   
Notes:  No spoilers beyond general concept for SPN, mild spoilers for "Objects in Space" for FF. Set pre-movie.   
Author's Note: For Victoria P. who asked for Kaylee Fry and John Winchester. Thanks to Florastuart for beta. 1,960 words. Contact the author at hosscheka at yahoo dot com. Feedback adored and answered.   
  



End file.
